Frank Bessem's Musiques d'Afrique

Mathey(Côte d'Ivoire)

Biography

Mathey is a popular singer of the 1990s in one of the
specialty genres of Côte d'Ivoire, afro-zouk. This very danceable mix of Antillean zouk
and elements of Congolese soukous has become known through singers such as Monique Seka,
but has been followed up by Mathey, Antoinette Allany and others.

Mathey used to be in the army of Côte d'Ivoire and used to sing in the Orchestre de la Marine,
but her promising musical career forced her to leave the army to concentrate on singing.

The music of Mathey is slightly more up-tempo than the mellow afro-zouk of Monique Seka,
and uses more influences of Ivorian folkore. She released a couple of albums which were quite successful. In 2014, after a period of relative
silence, she released « Tu m'as dit », an album with 14 existings songs, and 2 new compositions, again
produced by afro-zouk hero Ray Lema.